Well today’s sketch was another one that I did in the woods around where we live. This time in the form of a sketch of a fallen tree.

Day 42’s Fallen Giant

Really enjoyed doing this and really liked the outcome. Again I tried to go for the detailed bold focus of the sketch with the faded and really sketchy background. The main draw for this sketch was the whole torn up ground around the roots and the odd angle that the tree has fallen at.

I think I kind of got the whole torn up earth effect of the whole tree and earth around it, though the roots were a bit fiddly. I also struggle with drawing branches coming out towards you but I don’t think it turned out that badly.

Looking forward to more of these messy style sketches in the future and hope you guys like it as well.

So today I’ve decided to go back to finding something to sketch while out walking and use my trusty old pen and pencil. This was what caught my attention.

Day 40, bent but not broken!

Coincidently enough, this was the place that I realisied I didn’t know where I was too back in day 16’s sketch where I got lost. Turns out, if I’d turned left out of this gate rather than left I would have been home in like 20 minutes rather than the hour and a half it did take me.

Anyway today I liked the look of this gate, all bent and buckled but still stalwartly doing its job (even if you could just walk around it) so I decided to make it the focus of a sketch. Done in pen over a pencil under sketch I also realised that if you made the background lighter than the foreground (or in this case the focus of the sketch), it would help with the sense of depth and also help pop the focus of the sketch out a bit which is handy.

Really liked how it came out as well, especially the tree to the right and will have to do a few more of these in the future.

Decided to do some more flora drawings today with a bit of colour added to the pen medium.

Not sure it worked as well as the last days sketch and you cant really make it out as well but this may be because the last one was a flatter surface and this one was trying to show more depth. Still I may have to try and explore coloured pens in this forma bit more and see what happens. Still though at the moment the black pen one form yesterday was a lot better.

So today we have yet another change of medium with me just going for a straight pen rendered drawing.

Wisteria for day 38

So here we have the sketch of what I’m pretty sure is a Wisteria plant that’s outside the back of my Parent’s in laws house. Though in all honesty, saying this is a sketch is a bit of a understatement as it took me about 2 hours to do. I think study in tonal value would be a better description.

I really enjoyed it as well which was good though I’m debating as too whether I should try this with a wash as well, may have to just go for it. Annoyingly (again thanks to the shody camera or photo taking) the tones in real life seem to give off more depth (mind you the thumbnail size may not help this. Still I really like the outcome and want to try this more as it was pen rendering that really got me into the whole art thing.

So today’s sketch uses different media again, this time in the form of a quick sketch coloured in with PITT artist pens

M cooking meatballs!

Decided to get this one done as quickly as possible while my wife was cooking tea, then went back in and added the colour afterwards. Pretty happy with the sketch fro the amount of time it took which was a lot shorter than the other sketches.

As for the medium, the pens are fun to use but I still need to learn how to use them properly as I still struggle with them.

Still, the meatballs and linguine was lovely so I call that a good days sketch and lovely meal a success!

Now unlike yesterday where the smudges weren’t exactly welcome or useful, today this is referring to my wife’s parents cat Smudge.

day 36 is Smudges day.

Decided to do some quick sketches of the cat in pencil (apologies for the dark photo, it was the only way I could show the actual pencil lines properly as the one under the light looked too washed out). Did this in pencil which is a medium I haven’t used with this sketch blog yet.

Was also quite fun to just be free with this as the others are normally a lot more involved.

I think the one in the top left is a bit more accurate of the actual cat though as she was still for longer with that one.

Also I didn’t forget to draw one of her ears lol, she has had one removed due to cancer several years ago.

Well this was one of those days when things just didn’t work out. Tried another coffee sketch but this time my first plien air one.

Day 35. I’m not sure this went to plan.

Well this was meant to be a sketch of a log pile from the local wood. However, I’m not sure it turned out as I’d intended. For a start it turns out that working in coffee is a bit harder when your stood up and also it takes a rather long time to dry making it a rather difficult medium to actually sketch with.

I also messed up the perspective as the viewpoint of the sketch looking straight at the log pile but managed to sketch it as if it was up a hill to me. As for the background well its a bit hard to make out what its meant to be and basically it was pretty hard to add a range of tones to signify the wood behind the log pile.

Still you live and learn, I think I need some more practise with this though.